... NRA's Wayne LaPierre... "you should be anxious and you should be frightened"....criticized independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, California Democratic Sens. Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren and other high-profile Democrats, whom he accused of backing European style socialism as well creating new victimized groups and hurling insults at conservatives.

I think Wayne has the best polling data and focus groups money can buy. That is one reason why you don't see them respond to a mass killing right away, they are studying up on what they think will work in each case.

Though he was speaking to CPAC, I think his words weren't targeted to just that audience, he knew both that his words would be repeated for the general public and furthermore he was saying "these are your talking points, go forth and spread them." This is what they hope will work against the kids' march.

So what do we have here?

First: the kids need to stay away from alignment with other liberal causes and stick to guns.

Second, more importantly: the socialism label still hurts, it works for them with swings.

It probably especially still works for them with Reagan Dem types and all types who voted for Trump, whether of the type who regret their vote now or of the type that are still supporters. What some people like to label "white working class."

This is the fear where once you let in the "tax and spend liberals" and they take away guns, the next thing you know, you've got Stalin telling you not only how you can and cannot live your life, what job you have, what food you can eat, how you raise your kids, and even whether you can live or have to die.

If you already have had the socialist label applied and it has already stuck like for Bernie Sanders, where all they have to do is remind people of it, that means they have found that he has a rat's chance in hell of winning any of these voters. With others like Warren and Harris, they still have a chance not being labeled that way by doing things like avoiding "workers of the world unite" type memes and talking about the middle class, not the "working class", and talking on consumers and small business.

In addition, there's a subject I've avoided because it's delicate but now I think it is time to say it. Anti-semitism enters in here. Bernie is Jewish and he has a New York Jew's mannerisms and ways of talking . Make no mistake, midwest and western purple and red state people recognize this and often when they say they don't like New Yorkers, this is what they mean. This manner is also equated with socialism, this smear is as old as 19th century pograms , pre-dating use of it by fascists in the 20th century: the Jews are pretend socialists trying to enslave you for their own nefarious profit. It's a very old tune.

If Wayne has this right, that the socialist smear still works to break away a lot of swing voters, then Bernie Sanders will not have any luck pulling together the majority he wishes to get of underclass and hourly wage and low salary workers. Unless he somehow off loads the socialist label stuck on him like glue.

Maybe millennial voters think different, that's the only possibility I see. Don't underestimate the massive numbers of this generation that will now be registered, that's the difference between now and the recent past.

The Commie News Network staged a townhall in Florida this week where they even supplied the questions. This wasn't a discussion forum on gun control but a mob incitement where the useful idiots were allowed to drive screaming chants of 'ban and confiscate' that the moderator had to try to quiet.
This is one true agenda of the commies and always has been and if you observe progressives, activists, SJW's, globalists and Communitarians for some time they all eventually show their flaiming pinkness.
The NRA has a tough mandate to protect individual gun ownership rights while too much of the population is sliding into supporting useful idiot simplistic solutions. The neo-Marxists have honed their disruption and fear spreading skills over the years and use every opportunity to push their agenda. The NRA also has to support the gun industry which upsets some gun ownership rights supporters but without the manufacturers the individual ownership right is meaningless.

Oh please. Wayne LaPierre has been using the same formula for years. It's the same-old right-wing paranoia; he just swaps out the silhouette on his target. In 2008 he said that Obama had "a deep-rooted hatred of firearm freedoms," then followed up in 2012 to say that he "would come for our guns and do everything in his power to sabotage the Second Amendment." In 2016, he warned that Hillary Clinton "will come for your guns." At CPAC in 2018, he just substituted the most prominent Democrats of the moment--Sanders, Harris, Warner, etc. If Wyatt Earp rises from the grave and runs for the Democratic nomination in 2020, LaPierre will portray him as a gun-hating, soft-on-crime, totalitarian socialist.

Of course it works. The NRA has successfully used this formula to fundraise and recruit for decades. The point is that LaPierre's rhetoric is not some finely calibrated, poll-tested strategy to use Bernie Sanders to peel off Reagan Democrats (a bit of anachronism btw). It's the same sledgehammer the NRA has been using to whack liberals since the actual era of Reagan Democrats.

The best long-term response to this strategy is not to capitulate by running gun-friendly blue dogs in hopes of ducking such attacks. It's to eviscerate Wayne LaPierre and his godforsaken NRA. That's what these kids in Florida are doing, what Mike Bloomberg and Gabby Giffords are doing, what Democrats need to be doing across the country instead of diving for cover every time LaPierre opens his big mouth.

The socialist smear works for the same reason that smears have always worked. : feeds on justified discontent. Obviously until the 70s the working class felt things were getting better. Because they were. And to the extent they thought about it at all they figured that would continue. Maybe. Not so much for them but for their kids. ,

Which was OK. " The poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed" -Auden. They were willing to stand still because there was a reasonable chance their kids wouldn't. Until around 1980 when that stopped .

As it slowly dawned on them that their kids weren't going to live better they felt they had let them down. And that made them feel sad. And guilty. And caused them to want to hurt ...someone ....back.. In return. Wasn't enough any more to just play the lottery or watch the Knicks .Or some porn. . Life seemed spoiled some. . And they wanted to hurt ..... someone. " That'll show them they can't push me around."

But who? Well a familiar target. An upper class bitch. Like Hillary. . That'll show 'em.

The so-called "working class" (aka rural white conservatives) have no monopoly on suffering, and they aren't the only ones who are angry. How about we worry less about the NRA's pinata-of-the-day and focus instead on making the NRA the pinata, starting with manipulative, profiteering hypocrites like Wayne LaPierre.

Here is an idea about gun control which, on reading it, I realize I largely succumbed to long ago. I think it is sad commentary on our culture if it is actually the best answer but real life is lived, sometimes and always around sad situations. I am not pushing for acceptance of the idea but just throwing it into the conversation.

You can never give up. When you give up, you lose. Blacks are still fighting for freedom. Women are fighting for freedom. There has been progress, but the fights continue. If you are tired, just admit that you are tired and have given up. The NRA will lose, it may not come at the pace we would like but they will lose.

On this subject I am tired and I have given up. I believe Studebaker is probably right. I don't think that legislation will pass that will do anything of significance to change the gun nut situation for the better. In the meantime elections will be lost over the issue by candidates who could play significant roles in winning some of the other important battles.

Yes, see line one above. Do me a favor and don't start bringing up McGovern in every response to something I say just because he was my answer to one question on one subject. Your third sentence has been obvious to me for a very long time.

I don't see what yu are talking about. My link went to what Studebaker said about gun control, not unicycles which I have very little interested in. How about you link to whatever you think discredits him so we can decide if that discredits everything he says. I first ran across Studebaker here at dag a few years ago when Donal, a dagblog headliner here at the time, posted a link to an article by him which he, Donal, thought had some good ideas and I agreed although I don't remember the piece idea at all.

How did you know he is my soulmate? Wish you had told me sooner, soulmates are cool.

I liked the article, and agreed on many points. I didn't take it that he's actually advocating that the TSA be eliminated - I read it as sarcasm/snark backed up with some impressive numbers showing the absurdity of our overabundance of caution re flying compared to our total lack thereof toward guns.

And be honest ... how can you not love a wonderful old set from George Carlin?

I know it can be frustrating with how long the fight can be to make positive changes. But the successes progressives have made in the past took longer to achieve than we've spent fighting for gun control and our predecessors didn't give up. The fight to end slavery was generational as was the fight for a woman's right to vote. People fought their whole life and died without achieving their goal and without giving up. In the life of any one person it often seems as though there is little change. But over time all those incremental changes add up. Compare the life of virtually any person living today to the life that person would have had 200 years ago. Especially the life of women or minorities. The changes have been astonishing and they came about because people fought for decades without giving up.

My guess is the most that can be expected is the banning of high volume clips and bump-stock type modifications and maybe a national check system before purchases, steps I agree with. That will have zero affect in preventing maniacal psychopaths from getting a deadly semi-automatic rifle and going maniacal at a crowd. But, if you argue to most, or at least many, gun rights supporters that those two bans are small moves in the right direction you will be giving them ammunition for their slippery slope argument. I think that there is validity to the slippery slope argument because I believe that many who only advocate for small steps now hope for more and bigger steps later leading ultimately a gun free society. Good luck with that. I bet you will agree that many Democrats are gun rights supporters so there go a few more elections.

The slippery slope argument has some validity but not to the degree that you state or the far right gun nuts state it. I'm a democrat and a gun owner and I consider myself a supporter of the 2nd amendment. I'd like to see more gun control than it's possible to get right now. So yes, I want to see a slippery slope starting with what you, and I, think is the most we might get right now. But those who want the slippery slope to end with a gun free society and a ban and confiscation of all guns are few and far between.

Most gun rights supporters, gun owners, and even republicans support some gun control legislation while still thinking they support the 2nd amendment. The point we have to find is what exactly is reasonable gun control legislation. The point where most gun right supporters think we might have gone a little to far but are ok with it and most gun control supporters think we haven't gone quite far enough but are ok with it. That's really the point we need to find on all the issues that divide us. We haven't been able to find it because the republicans have surrendered to their far right and refuse to compromise. If we can find that point in the middle we can significantly reduce the number of mass shootings, the number of deaths when they happen, and reduce homicides in cities and deaths from gun suicides as well. Without significantly reducing most people's 2nd amendment rights.

You're naive to believe that only a few lefties want to ban and confiscate all guns. This is a repeated goal and what was being shouted at the CNN townhall. More important is the fact these commies want to strip millions of law abiding citizens of their natural right to keep and bear arms along with free speech which they have already damaged badly.
At another site I watched a commenter admit to being a degenerate gun owner while supporting, as you do, reasonable gun control. That exchange ended with him being branded as a gun stroking ammosexual.

Well I'm a far left liberal and all my friends and most of my acquaintances for the last 20 years have been far left liberals. In fact you're the only person I know who voted for Trump. I didn't know anyone who voted for McCain or Romney or Bush. So I think I know what my people, very liberal democrats and environmentalists, think better than you.

One can post anything on the internet accurate or not, but I am a strong supporter of capitalism. Based on your posts I guessed you voted for Trump. It's possible that you didn't vote or like so many trolls everything you post is a lie. There's no way to know for sure.

I found this piece very good on summing up the facts , good on the (yes, depressing) reality of what can be accomplished and what can't happen easily or quickly. There isn't a good way we can easily get to a European or Australian type situation because we have waited too long,there are just too many guns in this country now, and they will still be there even if illegal. Because of the Constitution problem, we probably can't enforce buy back and melt down. But we can still improve the situation:

VERY interesting on what millennial voting on this could be like. Many surprising things like: the approval level for concealed carry of handguns! Surely it's all up in the air now after Parkland, still very much worth a look:

Younger Americans aren’t as progressive on gun legislation as you might expect.

By Rachel Wolf @ Vox.com Feb 20, 2018, 3:00pm EST

Fits my own current confirmation bias, of course: that kids these days think different, they've got their own spin issues, different from other generations,different spin zones, don't even care to partake of the old ones.

It could be that older generations see the cultural changes around guns and don't like it. Younger generations grew up in a changed culture. Older generations were more likely to own a gun but favor more gun control laws. I'm 60 and when I was a kid every one owned a gun but it was just a tool. Like a hammer or a screwdriver. More people hunted. Or they needed a gun on occasions to shoot a skunk or a rabid animal near the house or maybe a ground hog in the vegetable garden. But no one open carried their gun around town. People wouldn't pull out the gun at parties to show off for their friends. If my dad had pulled out his rifle to show off the guests would have shrugged and said, "So? I got one of those too." Most guns sat back in the corner of the closet until there was some reason to use it. It was just an inexpensive shotgun or deer rifle. No one was going to pay 1 or 2 or 3 thousand dollars for an assault weapon when a simple cheap rifle would do the job.

People resist change. Older people see the changes and resist them. Many of the changes are liberal ones, equal rights for women, minorities, gays. But some changes liberals resist. Greater access to firearms, firearms as a status symbol not as a tool, open carry on the streets in the city. Older people resist all those changes.

What plays well at CPAC scare$ the general public.Next we are going to see assault weapon carrying guys threatening anyone who comes after their guns. The fact that they live in a bubble is going to work against those who have no problem with assault weapons.

I’m reminded that the NRA was silent when a black man, Philando Castile, with a gun permit was gunned down by a police officer. There is not a lot of trust that the NRA is concerned about the rights of people of color.

During his last run for the presidency, in 2012, Russian leader Vladimir Putin startled U.S. military experts with a mysterious pledge to develop novel kinds of weapons to counter the West’s technological edge. Armies of the future, he said, would need weapons “based on new physical principles” including “genetic” and “psychophysical” science.

[....] Unlike employees of private enterprises such as the Trump Organization or Trump campaign, White House aides have First Amendment rights when it comes to their employer, the federal government. If you have a leaker on your staff, the cure is firing, not suing.

[...] Documents in the criminal case against Nikolas Cruz obtained by the Associated Press show school officials and a sheriff’s deputy recommended in September 2016 that Cruz be involuntarily committed for a mental evaluation.

Adrián Lamo, a hacker best known for breaking into the computer networks of The New York Times and other major corporations, and for reporting the Army whistle-blower Chelsea Manning to the authorities, was found dead on Wednesday in Wichita, Kan. He was 37.

For the FBI, the longstanding failure to diversify its ranks is nothing short of “a huge operational risk,” according to one senior official, something that compromises the agency’s ability to understand communities at risk, penetrate criminal enterprises, and identify emerging national security threats.

Indeed, 10 months before being fired as director of the FBI by President Trump, James Comey called the situation a “crisis.” [....]

ARCATA, Calif. [.....] The shops trade largely in cash with customers who are paid in cash — the marijuana growers, distributors and “trimmigrants,” seasonal workers who cut back the flowering plants for market each autumn. But business is stalling as marijuana’s dark cash economy comes into the light, pushed by the state’s legalization of the drug earlier this year.

Attorney John Dowd said in a statement that the investigation, now led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, was fatally flawed early on and “corrupted” by political bias. He called on Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees that probe, to shut it down.